sets or separates? 1 1

[Roy Winters]

I have mulitple sets of coins and some duplicates in separate coins.  some people tell me to leave the sets intact.  some people say look at the price of the individual coins and see if they add up to more than the value of the set.  my question is, if i send you a set of coins, lets say 1968 us proof set, can I ask NGC to break them out individually or do i have to do that before i send them in.  On the other side of the fence.  should i just leave them in their set and have the set graded?

[World Colonial]

In your example of the 1968 proof set, it's going to cost you $19 per coin ($95 for the set) in grading fees, plus $35 return shipping, plus a handling fee of $10, plus whatever it costs you to mail the coins to NGC.  That's in the vicinity of $150.

You'd probably have to receive minimum grades of "68" as a cameo/ultra cameo to break even or make it worthwhile financially, if that's why you are doing it.  This is a really common set and so are the individual coins, even in the highest grades.

If you want a graded set, you should buy one already graded and sell the one you have.  It will be cheaper, unless you want all the coins as a "68" or "69" with the cameo designation.  Maybe then it isn't, maybe.

[powermad5000]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

If I am not mistaken, NGC will grade the individual coins in a proof set and attach a special label numbered 1-5 (or 1-6 in those sets) and it will list the individual grade of each coin in the set. I do believe though they are still going to charge you the fees as if each coin was submitted in an individual flip, meaning you are not going to get any price break or reduction for submitting them in the OGP. That being the case, if you were really set on sending the whole proof set to get graded, I would not crack it out of the OGP, but I would submit it as is. That will reduce on the possible mishandling (or any handling at all of individual coins) or possible damage to any of the coins by removing them from the proof set case. I am not sure how to do that from a submission standpoint as I have only ever submitted raw singular coins so you would want to call NGC beforehand to ask how you fill out the paperwork properly.

That said, I do agree with @World Colonial. In order for it to be worth the fees, you would have to be confident that the grades returning (imho) would have to be a minimum of PF 69 or PF 69 Cameo or Ultra Cameo (imho PF 68 would not be high enough as there were proof sets a plenty made). There were 3,041,506 proof sets issued in 1968. Of all those saved proof sets, you are going to have to achieve a very high grade for the coins to have value in the marketplace (imho PF 68 would be a common grade). Also be aware that just because they are sitting in a proof set case and were specifically and specially placed in the OGP, that does not mean they are perfect coins. Just in the process of making that many proof sets, only those of the beginning of the run when the dies were fresh will have the best strikes and finish, as well as there being the possibility of the mint employee mishandling a coin before it got put into the OGP.

[Roy Winters]

thank you for the heads up.  good to have this forum.